A United Parcel Service truck builds deliveries in Pittsburgh on June 25. UPS declared in an Oct. 28 regulatory filing that it has pared about 48,000 jobs since the year launched, including about 34,000 delivery drivers and other workers in operational positions.
As uncertainty over the national economic outview persists, several major employers have announced sweeping layoffs over the past week.
Tarreceive, the retailer based in Minneapolis, declared on Thursday, Oct. 23, that it will lay off about 1,000 employees in corporate roles and decline to fill about 800 current openings, meaning about 1,800 job cuts. Amazon this week confirmed that it will cut 14,000 corporate roles, following a report from Reuters that the e-commerce giant might be planning as many as 30,000 layoffs. UPS declared in an Oct. 28 regulatory filing that it has pared about 48,000 jobs since the year launched, including about 34,000 delivery drivers and other workers in operational positions.
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Here’s what to know about the layoffs at Amazon, UPS, Tarreceive and other employers.
Impact on Houston
Houston and Texas will escape the brunt of the layoffs announced this week. The Tarreceive cuts to corporate roles will mostly impact workers in Minnesota, as the company is headquartered in Minneapolis. Similarly, a spokesperson for Amazon declared in an email that the company is not sharing information on the geographic impact of the announced cuts, but the company’s corporate headquarters is in Seattle, with its second corporate headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.
A spokesperson for UPS, which is headquartered in Atlanta and counts nearly half a million employees worldwide, declared the company would not share more information than was disclosed in the earnings materials filed this week. However, records maintained by the Texas Workforce Commission find only one Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) letter filed by UPS this year: in August, the company declared it would lay off 62 people at a facility in Dallas.
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AI effects
Amazon, at least, pointed directly to artificial innotifyigence as the culprit behind the cuts. Generative AI is “the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet,” wrote Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, in a memo sent to employees and posted online Tuesday, announcing the layoffs.
“We’re convinced that we required to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to relocate as quickly as possible for our customers and business,” Galetti wrote.
Signs of softening
Even though this week’s layoffs are not centered on Texas, workers in the region have been rattled by recent layoffs in the region’s energy sector. On Sept. 3, ConocoPhillips announced it would lay off up to 25% of its global workforce, which could mean more than 3,000 job cuts. Several weeks later, Exxon announced plans to lay off about 2,000 workers, although the company notified the Houston Chronicle no U.S. jobs would be included in those cuts.
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As a result of the ongoing federal government shutdown, which launched Oct. 1, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has not released a jobs report for September — a key gauge policybuildrs typically utilize to receive a bird’s-eye view of the U.S. labor market.
However, there are other signs that the jobs market is softening, including this week’s layoffs. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced another interest-rate cut, with Chair Jerome Powell pointing to employment concerns at his press conference on the decision.
“You see a significant number of companies either announcing that they are not going to be doing much hiring or actually doing layoffs,” Powell declared. “We’re watching that very carefully.”
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